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After a nice relaxing shower, nothing feels better than drying off with a soft, fluffy towel. But, do you really want that towel touching your clean skin?
Most of us simply aren’t washing our towels as often as we should—and that debate goes both ways.
Some people are so obsessive about germs that they never use a towel more than once, while others will use the same towel all week without thinking twice about it.
In this day and age, it’s becoming more and more important to be environmentally friendly and conserve water as often as possible.
At the same time, health experts are constantly warning us about harmful bacteria and hidden germs that have the power to make us sick.
So, how many times can you realistically use a bath towel before it becomes a health hazard?
Keri Petersen, M.D., who works in internal medicine at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, settled this debate while speaking with Women’s Health.
According to Petersen, most consumer and environmental agencies agree that you should never reuse the same bath towel more than 3 or 4 times before washing it.
Hanging it out to dry for any longer than that can put your health at risk when your towel begins breeding harmful bacteria and disgusting mold.
Keep in mind that this number only works if you’re drying your wet towels properly each time. If you can, open the door and turn on the bathroom fan before you take a shower, so the air is less humid. Once you’ve dried yourself off, spread the towel out on a rack (not bunched up), so it dries evenly.
As it turns out, bath towels aren’t the only towels we don’t wash often enough—kitchen towels are worse!
While speaking with the Huffington Post, Kelly Reynolds, a researcher at the University of Arizona’s Zuckerman College of Public Health, said we should be washing our kitchen rags after every use!
Unless you have an unlimited supply of kitchen towels, this is obviously impossible. So, the next best option is to dip your kitchen towels in a bacteria-killing bleach solution between uses.
Reynolds recommends filling your sink with water and about two teaspoons of bleach per gallon of water. Once they’ve been sanitized, hang them to dry completely just as you would with your bath towels.
This bleach solution will hold you over until you can properly wash your kitchen towels, but you absolutely must throw them in the washing machine at least once a week.
How often do you wash your towels? Tell us in the comments!
Photo Copyright © 2006 Paul Reynolds/Flickr
